Preview
Identifier
Revue Program_Page_30
Creation Date
4-23-2021
Disciplines
Arts and Humanities | Theatre and Performance Studies
Description
DRAMATURGY - “SCOTLAND THE BRAVE” & “CRAZY
Forever Plaid is a musical tribute to 50s “guy groups” with music, lyrics, and book written by Stuart Ross. It was first produced in 1989 as an off-Broadway musical and was a motion picture in 2009 featuring half of the original Broadway cast. The show follows four best friends who met in high school.: Smudge, Frankie, Sparky, and Jinx, who together make up Forever Plaid, a quartet ‘Guy Group’ modeled after bands such as the Crew-Cuts or the Four Aces. In an unfortunate turn of events, the Plaids are hit and killed by a bus of Catholic schoolgirls who were on their way to see the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. The show begins with the Plaids coming back from the afterlife to perform the show that they never got to do in life.
“Scotland the Brave” is one of the unofficial national anthems of Scotland. The song was originally published in the 1890s under an unknown composer. In the 1950s, a version of lyrics to the song were written by Cliff Hanley, a Scottish journalist, for singer Robert Wilson. This song appears in the middle of the second act. During the song, Frankie talks about the oxford definition of the word Plaid and what it means to the Scots.
“Crazy ‘Bout Ya Baby” was a popular song released by the Crew-Cuts, a male vocal quartet based in Toronto. It was written by tenor Pat Barrett and baritone Rudi Maugeri in 1954. This song and many others at the time were heavily influenced by the wave of popularity in the 1940s Doo-Wop style, which still carried over well into the 50s. This song appears in the middle of the first act. It was originally a song that the Plaids wanted to include in their repertoire and had been rehearsing, but unfortunately they died before they had the chance to do so. Now that they are performing again, this is the perfect opportunity to add the song, however, they only feel comfortable performing it how they rehearsed it: with Plungers’ Helpers instead of microphones.
Publisher
Arkansas State University
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Theatre Program
Keywords
musical, compliation, retrospective, medley
